Mamas of little ones: Let’s Go Play with Charlie Hope

As soon as I heard Charlie Hope’s first CD, and then her lovely collection of lullabies, I was struck by how absolutely clear, real and pretty her voice is–especially in contrast with all the robotic autotune vocals this mama of a pop-music loving tween has to endure.

Lucky for those of you with little ones, one of our favorite kindie voices has made even more lovely music that you’ll want to bring into your collection.

{keep reading for free song download link!}

Packing over twenty songs, stories and rhymes into her new release Let’s Go Play!, this would be my new go-to CD gift for little ones. I can just see my preschool niece grabbing another tiny fist to dance in circles to the happy-pop of Best Friends or listening intently to the clever short spoken-word pieces like Tiny Tim, about a soap-bubble eating turtle.

What Charlie Hope does really well is just sing into the microphone with barely anything else going on in the background. So Free has the prettiest la-da-da-da chorus in this a cappella song with little playground noises far off. And the swingy sound of Robin In The Rain has me snapping my fingers along with the music.

In addition to some classics like Wheels on the Bus—with a twist—there are plenty of great original songs. In fact, the bouncy One That I Love recently was our Kids’ Music Download of the Week on Cool Mom Tech (psst: free download!)

Her voice isn’t on its own the entire time—I got my wish that she’d do more songs with CMP favorite Caspar Babypants when he joins her for Alouette. And Charlie’s mom narrates The Bear Family story which has Goldilocks doing the right thing at the end—so sweet.

Though I feel like a Scrooge for saying this, I could have done without the kids singing What I Like To Do, which is cute, but just not something I want to listen to for a few minutes. No matter: There are twenty other pieces to love, so I can unreservedly say that this is a must-have CD for any young child’s CD collection. –Christina